Holocaust Money Unspent

Prior to Israel’s Holocaust Day, State Comptroller Yosef Shapira released a report revealing that due to mismanagement, only $1.2 million of $11 million allocated for Holocaust survivors was utilized to provide them with hot meals, medical treatment and other essentials. A large part of another $16 million budget allocated for 2014 and 2015 also went unused. All this was largely due to the lack of a single body to supervise distribution of the funds.

Attorney Aviva Silberman, founder of Aviv for Holocaust Survivors, said that a quarter of Holocaust survivors live in poverty. It is time to halt Israel’s policy of providing less funding to Holocaust survivors who arrived in Israel during and after 1953, she said.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a cabinet meeting that he would personally head a committee to ensure that the mismanagement of Holocaust survivor will stop.

“Money that is not being used properly due to bureaucracy,” he said. “We must unlock what is jamming the system.”